A gay film from Norway has won its creator a £25,000 prize at a leading queer film festival held in Cardiff.
Magnus Mork’s film, The Samaritan, is about a lonely middle-aged man in desperate need of company and it scooped the Iris Prize, Cardiff’s International Gay and Lesbian Short Film Prize on 9 October.
The difficult task of selecting the cream of the crop for this year’s annual award, held at Cardiff’s Cineworld, was in the hands of a jury of 14 filmmakers, actors and industry experts from around the world.
Jury chair Rebecca Mathews from British Council Wales was astounded by “the maturity of topics handled by the filmmakers”
Mathews said: “Yes, we had the all important coming of age films but we also delved into the difficult, sometimes unspoken areas of incest, immigration, corrective rape, asylum seeking, displacement, homophobia and HIV.”
The jury found The Samaritan to demonstrate “deft and nuanced filmmaking: It told such a big, urgent story of real relevance in a small film. It was so beautifully shot, and through the filmmaker’s masterly technique took us as viewers on a journey through place, people and characters and allowed us to creep into inscrutable corners.”
The Iris Prize is an international short film prize that unites a global network of film festivals – located in Tel Aviv, Hamburg, Brazil, Austin, Hong Kong, London, Toronto, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Dublin, Philadelphia, Sydney, Miami, Chicago, Melbourne and Mumbai – who annually nominate a short film to compete for the Iris Prize.
Mork received a prize package valued at £25,000 for winning the Iris Prize, the largest prize for a gay and lesbian short film competition in the world, generously sponsored by the UK post-production sector. It should offer him the freedom to begin work on his next film.
All of the filmmakers who travelled to Wales for the four day festival were hosted by the Friend of Iris, individuals who opened their homes to the makers of the 30 short-listed films, which also included seven on the latest gay and lesbian feature films.
Receiving a cash prize of £1,000 for best feature film was Nana Neul for My Friend For Faro, donated by Independent Financial Adviser Martin Briggs.
Best UK Short was won by director Ana Moreno for her film Mosa. She will be invited to be a member of the 2011 Iris Prize International Jury at a guest of the festival, which takes place in Cardiff, Wales (UK) from 5 to 8 October next year.
